Re: Support for serial console on legacy free machines

[Miquel van Smoorenburg]

In article <000701c119cd$ebf0c720$[e-mail]>,
Stuart MacDonald <[e-mail]> wrote:
>C) serial.c contains a completely separate serial console driver,
>complete with its own init routine. Which meshes with the current
>suggestion that the "serial driver" isn't used, and pci init happens
>too late.

That's because you expect printk() to work even if interrupts
don't (yet), so there's a mini driver in there that works in polled
mode and is completely anatomous (sp?).

Also, the `real' serial driver only works when /dev/ttySx is opened by
a process - it needs a lot of context (file handles etc) that is
dependent on stuff that is only available after the system has booted.

Mike.
-- 
"dselect has a user interface which scares small children"
	-- Theodore Tso, on debian-devel